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Catherine J. Hinton

Catherine J. Hinton

Attorney Catherine Hinton began practicing law in 1996. She has extensive experience representing clients in criminal cases at the trial level, on direct appeal, in post-conviction proceedings, achieving the best possible results for her clients in both state and federal courts. Catherine has handled a number of complex Federal habeas corpus petitions. She is experienced in handling university disciplinary proceedings. She has recently obtained three successful parole decisions in a row in lifetime imprisonment cases before the Massachusetts Parole Board. Catherine is perhaps best known for her expertise in the field of Sex Offender Registry Board (SORB) law. Her successes in this arena include vacating sentences of Community Parole Supervision for Life (CPSL), obtaining the extraordinary remedy of complete relief from the obligation to register, obtaining reductions in SORB classification level for numerous clients previously convicted of sexual offenses, and appellate work which has resulted in groundbreaking appellate decisions in the SORB arena.

Attorney Catherine Hinton was named by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly as an “Up and Coming Lawyer” in 2005, and has been recognized on multiple occasions in Massachusetts Super Lawyers Magazine. She has been a faculty member at a yearly training program teaching other lawyers how to litigate Sex Offender Registry Board cases since 2003, and is widely recognized as one of the foremost authorities on the subject in Massachusetts. In 2014, the Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services awarded Catherine the Paul Liacos Mental Health Advocacy Award for Zealous Advocacy and Outstanding Legal Services to the Poor for her work in the SORB field.

Before beginning her practice of law, Catherine worked as a law clerk to U.S. District Court Judge Robert E. Keeton and as a paralegal for a civil rights firm focusing on police brutality cases. She is admitted to practice in Massachusetts, the U.S. District Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court.